"The pleasures of the novel go far beyond the crackling, breathless
plot and the satisfaction of watching the puzzle fall into place. The
book is shot through with humor, both laugh-out-loud and subtle." --New
York Times Book Review
From National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner Laura Ruby
comes an epic alternate history series about three kids who try to solve
the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt
laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City.
It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a
vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines,
and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen
before.
Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving
behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher--a puzzle laid
into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised
a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle
has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is
little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a
Morningstarr apartment--until a real estate developer announces that the
city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings.
Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the
people of New York.
And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove
that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.
"An epic mission to solve one of the greatest mysteries of their time.
I loved this book. It is full of twists and turns" (from the
Brightly.com review, which named York: The Shadow Cipher one of the
best books of 2017).
